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Month: August 2014

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”
~Viktor Frankl~

A popular question people ask me when I talk about purpose is, Pharaoh! I’m often asked what choice Pharaoh had since it was God who hardened his heart against God. And that is a very important question, because there are a lot of people out there today who believe God made Pharaoh that way and therefore could make them follow a particular path that they do not want to follow.

“How does this apply to the every day person? After all, I’m not Pharaoh.”

Good point! This is how it affects all of us. If God could harden a man to do things against the man’s will, even damnable things, what stops God from doing the same to you and I? Do you see where I’m going? What if you’re the next Hitler or the next Abacha? How could you stop it and change course?

People are already asking these sorts of questions.

“What if I was destined to be poor and can do nothing about it, just like my father and his father before him?”

In the same vein, some are asking, “What if I was made a homosexual by God and fighting it is just fighting His will?”

“God’s love is so real that He created you just so He can prove it.”
~Nick Vujicic~

This post flows from the last thought shared on my previous post about receiving a calling from God. And here I intend to touch on a very sensitive matter that springs from that thought – predestination.

More challenging than the quest for purpose is the fear of what we may discover when we embark on that quest. Sometimes it’s the fear of discovering the responsibility that purpose would bestow on us and other times it’s the fear of discovering that an unpleasant path lies ahead of us or that we have been predestined for damnation. More often than not this fear finds its root in a popular misunderstanding of the scriptures.

In my last blog post – PURPOSE: The Challenge Of A Life Without Purpose, I shared how challenging life can be without purpose and added how maximizing our potential is a major key to discovering our purpose. So today I want to build on that thought.

“The future belongs to those who see opportunities before they become obvious.”
~John Scully~

It was Helen Keller who said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Helen Keller was blind but she has contributed to humanity a lot more than many with seeing eyes ever could. What did she possess that others didn’t? Continue reading →

Life sometimes can feel like racing on a treadmill; a lot of energy is expended and at a great speed too, but no progress is made and no change is seen either. The walls we see around us are the same with each passing minute and that can impact our sanity in ways no psychiatrist can explain.

That is how a life without purpose feels like; like running a race of a thousand miles with no finish line ahead. Purpose is not about the many activities we engage in or the amount of energy we expend per day, neither is it dependent on the speed of our lives; “Oh, everything is happening so fast”, we say. But more often than not, we’re on a fast track to nowhere.

Most times we mistake purpose for the ROLES we play in life: father, mother, and provider etc. but without an aim to all these, it will simply be an exercise in futility. In ignorance we jump into the treadmill of society and try our best to increase the speed of our every activity, Continue reading →